Snapdragon 835 It is the first commercial 10nm process SoC on the earth The SoC is destined to be the "Royal" flagship in 2017, from the Sony XZ Premium launched by PPT, to the Galaxy S8/S8+launched in mass production, to the Xiaomi 6 launched in China, to HTC's turnaround U11, Nubia's annual flagship Z17, and the just released One Plus Five, all have been equipped with Snapdragon 835, but who is the strongest among them? Let's take a look now.
Performance analysis of Xiaolong 835
The CPU of Snapdragon 835 is 1.9GHz small core+2.45GHz large core Kryo280, and the frequency is very high, while the GPU is 710MHz Adreno 540. The Snapdragon 835 uses an 8-core core size architecture, consisting of four large cores responsible for extreme performance output and four small cores pursuing "energy efficiency ratio". The new Kryo280 architecture, except for its name, has no inheritance relationship with Qualcomm's original Kryo architecture.
The most special thing about this architecture is that it is the first product to improve the new architecture of ARM. The BoC license allows the manufacturer to adjust the architecture according to requirements, especially the modification of the instruction prefetch area and the transmission queue, but some parts of the architecture are not within the scope of the license. Both the decoder and the execution pipeline cannot be moved. After all, their project is too big to change. Qualcomm did not disclose that it was modified based on the ARM architecture, but Qualcomm said that both large and small core CPUs are semi self-designed architectures, and the memory controller is also designed by Qualcomm itself.
The Kryo 280 CPU of Snapdragon 835 has significantly improved the performance of integer computing IPC (the number of instructions that can be processed per week) compared with 820/821. However, because the basic architecture is likely to be A73, its integer testing and L1/L2 cache performance characteristics are similar to those of A73 on Kirin 960. However, the process and Qualcomm modified the memory controller, resulting in 6% higher performance than A72, 14% higher performance than A57, and 22% higher performance than the previous generation Snapdragon 820/821. But at the cost of the new Kryo 280 architecture, the floating point test of the original strength of Snapdragon 820 showed a significant regression, even lost to A72, and the result was still similar to that of the A73 of Kirin 960.
In the GPU part, Adreno 540 on Snapdragon 835 and Adreno 530 on 820 use the same architecture, but minor optimizations have been made to avoid previous bottlenecks, and minor changes have been made to ALU, registers, and depth rejection. The GPU performance of Snapdragon 835 is 25% higher than that of Adreno 530 of Snapdragon 820. Its performance is twice that of Adreno 430 of Snapdragon 810 and 4.5 times that of Adreno 330 on the old flagship Snapdragon 801. The GPU performance of Snapdragon 835 is 50% better than that of Mali-G71MP8 on the weakest Kirin 960 of the same generation. I have to lament that in recent years, the speed of GPU performance improvement has easily left the CPU.
Performance comparison
But even for the same SoC, the peripheral hardware, cooling configuration and software tuning will directly affect the performance. It can be expected that there will be a large performance gap between the six existing Snapdragon 835 mobile phones. For comparison, we add the glory V9 with the best performance of the Kirin960 model and the Galaxy S8+(G955N) with the Exynos 8895 for comparison. The specific data can be stamped Love to play computer games Of Running points library , below are some excerpts:
In terms of CPU computing performance, compare the Exynos 8895 and Kirin 960 of the same generation as Snapdragon 835. Kirin 960 is the weakest, and 835 and 8890 have each other's victory or defeat. The gap between six Snapdragon 835 is also obvious. One plus 5, Xiaomi 6 and Nubia Z17 are obviously stronger and belong to the first echelon. Among them, the Nubian Z17 has stronger single core performance, breaking the single thread record of 835. However, the score of multi-core regulation is slightly lower than that of one plus 5 and Xiaomi 6. In the second echelon, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and Samsung Galaxy S8+(G9550) have almost the whole package tail, and HTC U11 is slightly better, but different tests fluctuate greatly.
In the GPU part, Xiaolong 835 wins Exynos8895, which is the strongest SoC in this generation of GPU, while Kirin960 completely falls behind and is greatly crushed. Among the six Snapdragon 835 machines, the Nubia Z17 and Xiaomi 6 are still the first echelon, and the GPU performance can still surpass the Exynos 8895. However, the Nubian Z17 can beat Xiaomi 6 in the new test of high level and high pressure. One plus five in the second tier, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and HTC U11 have declined in gradient, while S8+with only 670MHz GPU is already the third tier.
Record of flash memory chip model of Aigo tester (different batches of some models may use different flash memory)
Except for the one plus 3T of the previous generation, the machines tested here are all equipped with UFS 2.1 flash memory. Only Glory V9 uses the F2FS file system, and other machines are EXT4. Of the six 835 models, only S8+(G9550) and Z17 have 64G storage, and the others are 128G (in other cases, the higher the flash memory capacity, the faster the speed).
In terms of flash memory performance, the small capacity chip of Nubia Z17 has the highest continuous read and write performance, and the write performance is also good. However, in the random write test, it is more affected by the file system. In addition to the surprising result of "Sony is the unknown bottom, HTC U11 uses EXT4 to achieve close to the F2FS effect", the Z17 can also leapfrog some 128G high-capacity rivals and perform well.
Core scheduling and frequency
The most special thing about this year's Snapdragon 835 is that the CPU and GPU frequencies have changed a lot. Although the CPU of Qualcomm's own test prototype is 1.9GHz+2.45GHz, Samsung after mass production has limited the maximum frequency of the system to 2.36GHz. Later HTC U11 and Xiaomi 6 can detect the maximum frequency of 2.45GHz in the system, However, only when the camera is triggered can it reach the highest frequency.
In actual operation, the latest Nubia Z17 is more radical. It can reach the highest frequency of 2.45GHz within 1-2 seconds before the start of all applications. It is the first machine set in this way (the one plus five just launched is also the same). It is a Snapdragon 835 that can be full blooded in daily use. This strategy is somewhat similar to the Snapdragon 821 on One Plus 3T. It can effectively improve the application startup speed and will not cause a big heat in a short burst time. This kind of tuning method can be predicted that the Nubia Z17 and One Plus 5 will surely be one of the fastest mobile phones to open the application.
Z17 frequency monitoring in GFXBench
In terms of GPU, the frequency designed by Qualcomm is as high as 710MHz, but only 670MHz is available on S8/S8+. Xiaomi 6, HTC U11 and Nubia Z17 can all reach 710MHz full frequency. Perhaps some manufacturers think that the performance of Snapdragon 835 is more than enough, and the main reason why they have adjusted to the direction of "frequency reduction and endurance" may also be to suppress fever. However, no matter what the reason is, the author still recommends to provide different performance modes like Nubia, and give users the right to run with all their strength.
Nubia Z17 The room temperature is 26 degrees, the desktop is flat, the list of performance modes is not added, the normal application is simulated, and the 8-core full open copy machine (SoC performance of different constitutions will be different):
The starting speed is basically maintained at 1.9G+2.2G, and occasionally it can reach 1.9G+2.36G;
About 30 seconds, 1.9G+2.0G appears in a short time;
1.9G+1.88G will appear in a short time after 2 minutes;
After 3 minutes, the small nucleus began to experience occasional frequency reduction, and the frequency fluctuated between "1.25G+2.0G, 1.4G+2.3G, 1.9G+1.96G". Every 1 or 2 seconds, it would jump, and occasionally it could detect 1.9G+2.0G;
It started to stabilize at 1.9G+1.88G in 4 minutes and remained unchanged until 10 minutes;
Although the frequency fluctuates rapidly and greatly, the small nuclei almost consistently maintain the highest frequency, while the large nuclei fluctuate between 1.88G and 2.2G. The performance output is very average. The frequency that can be stabilized under full load for a long time is 1.9G+1.88G. Occasionally, 1.9G+2.36G can be detected in 1 or 2 seconds. In the process, the machine body is only at the warm hand level, displaying the maximum temperature of 59 degrees, and the maximum power of 4.19W when the CPU is fully opened (temperature and power consumption are both read and calculated by software, for reference only). After the performance mode is turned on, the machine will be more actively maintained at 1.9G+2.36G. The full frequency time will be slightly longer, and the power consumption will indeed be higher. The performance mode may not be dominant in the game.
Game performance
In Rong Yaozhong, the national mobile game king, the Nubia Z17 can't turn on the high frame rate mode yet, but the operation is basically around 26-30 frames. The four small cores of the CPU are the highest frequency, and the large cores are basically idle. The performance surplus is large and the game is smooth.
In the game test, it is found that the background control of the Nubia Z17 is quite radical. In order to ensure the maximum performance of the foreground application, the system will regulate the CPU resources of the background application by default. This can reserve more CPU resources for foreground applications, but applications such as suspended windows are prone to suspended animation. It is the first time for the author to encounter such a radical setting that the default control can be removed in the power saving application power saving management.
In addition, Nubia UI also has very exaggerated background management settings. In actual use, even the background activities of Pea pod will be recognized by the system and prompted in the notice bar. In order to leave resources for the foreground application, it is almost crazy.
In the big games such as Collapse 3, NBA 2K15 and NBA 2K17, Nubia Z17 did not encounter too much pressure. The small core is very active, and the big core is only 1-2 running, but it is still as smooth as a dog. I have to say that the basic performance of Snapdragon 835 is really strong.
In order to squeeze its performance as much as possible, we use the Kai 2 is a portable game that the current flagship SoC cannot cope with. In the game, Z17 basically runs at the frequency of small core 1.9G+large core 2.0-2.2G, and the four large cores run in the form of matching in pairs in turn. It is not until five minutes later that the large core goes offline. However, the actual GPU frequency is around 314MHz, and the highest GPU frequency does not exceed 500MHz. On the contrary, the GPU pressure is not as high as expected.
In the default highest special effect mode, the Nubia Z17 can play at a frame rate near 30 frames, and some scenes can even run up to 40-50 frames. Although there is still a jam, there is finally a flagship mobile phone that can run. For the time being, only the Nubia Z17 and one plus five can run like this.
Summary
Judging from the ferocious performance tuning of the Nubia Z17, its positioning is clearly the flagship of performance and game. On the basis of the Full Blood Snapdragon 835, the CPU focuses on optimizing the single core performance that has a great impact on the game, and can maintain the single core performance as high as possible even if the game is hot for a long time. At the system level, the Nubia Z17 can also release the highest frequency of 2.45G when the application is opened (the highest frequency can also be triggered when the application that has been opened in the background is opened again). The strict background CPU call control in its system is also a rare practice in the industry.
Most of the thermal power consumption saved in CPU and background control is likely to be left to GPU, so that its GPU can run higher than other Snapdragon 835 machines. Finally, it shows the domineering performance that even Full Fire 2 can run. The tuning of single core performance and the most powerful GPU make Nubia Z17 an active Android Game performance Perhaps there is no one of the strongest flagship.
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